Wednesday, Oct 10, 2018, 10:52 am

20,000 Native Voters for North Dakota?

Email this article to a friend

Buffalo at play on the North Dakota portion of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, where voters are hoping for corrected IDs that will allow them to vote in November. (Photo by Stephanie Woodard)

A major voting hurdle for Native Americans in North Dakota used to be thought of as a kind of force of nature, sort of like gravity or sunshine: Indian reservations didn’t have named, numbered streets. And without these designations on the tribal IDs that Natives carry, they couldn’t vote in the state.​

There was no way around the problem. No residential address on tribal IDs meant no ballot box access for Native people—unless they were willing to undertake prohibitively long and costly drives and other hurdles to get an alternate ID. “It is a voter-suppression technique North Dakota targets at its Native population,” accuses OJ Semans, the Rosebud Sioux co-director of Four Directions civil rights group.

In September, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision in a voting-rights case brought by the Native American Rights Fund on behalf of Native plaintiffs.

Or not. Why can’t tribes just go right ahead and name and number their roads and highways? mused OJ Semans and Bret Healy, a consultant with Four Directions. What’s to stop them? They are sovereign nations, so there is no reason they can’t use North Dakota’s orderly road-naming conventions, already employed in various forms by cities and counties throughout the state.

The lack of named numbered streets was not a force of nature after all, Semans and Healy realized, but a simple administrative function that needed fixing.

“North Dakota allows the equivalent of same-day registration, so the state’s five tribes can put officials throughout each reservation during the several-week early-voting period, which is already underway, and on Election Day,” says Healy. The tribal officials can provide verification letters with tribally issued residential addresses to Native voters who have lived on the reservation for at least 30 days, he says. The voters can then use the verification letter to vote. “This means the perhaps 20,000 Native Americans of voting age on reservations will be assured they can vote in the November election.”

On October 8, Semans and his wife, Barb, co-directors of Four Directions, announced the new effort to Al Jaeger, the secretary of state and head elections official. They asked for his public support for what they called a “simple, elegant solution” to the problem.

“The state is using its ID law to keep us from voting,” says Semans. “But instead of fighting the law, we are solving the problem it caused.”

Neither Secretary of State Al Jaeger’s election director nor the press office of Congressman Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who is running against current Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) in November’s election, responded by press time with a comment on the tribal effort or the potential effect on the election of adding so many typically Democratic voters.

Heitkamp applauds the idea of improved Native American voting access, for which she has long advocated. Last week, she helped introduce a bill to enhance Native voting rights that would establish equal treatment for tribal IDs, among other efforts. Said Heitkamp, “Given the number of Native Americans who have served, fought, and died for this country, it is appalling that some people would still try and erect barriers to suppress their ability to vote.”

Stephanie Woodard is an award-winning journalist who has written investigative articles for In These Times. Her new book is American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle for Self-Determination and Inclusion.

the fraud of hillary’s vote-margin::: Have heard of another DemocratParty vote-theft bombshell ::: due to Census counts up to 12% below the number of registered voters in four-of-ten urban coastal districts –by no coincidence, machine-run Democrat fiefdoms for decades if not generations– we know that CrookHillary’s much-hyped “popular vote” exceeding Trump’s 63 million in 2016, overstates her legitimate total by a minimum five million ballots. In fact, due to multiple counts & various ballot-stuffing measures, he/she/it most probably tallied closer to 55 than 58 million benighted sluggards.This ongoing refrain that >Rats’< legitimate tally exceeded Trump’s is pure agitprop dezinformatsiya. Keep at it – despite Soros’ suborned Secretaries of State in rodent-infested gubernatorial venues, reforms in force by 2020 will radically mitigate urban machines’ long-standing, subversive ballot fraud.

Posted by ernie_oertle on 2019-03-08 12:38:06

what fraud, dummass?

what books?

Posted by fuster on 2019-01-07 02:33:46

I mostly get approximately $19,000-$20,000 per month through the internet. After doing work so wholeheartedly, I ended up losing my job in my company where I have given a lot of years. I truly needed a reliable income source. I am not into "get rich overnight" packages as you can see all over the net. Those are all kind of ponzi network marketing strategies where you need to first make interested customers and then sell a product to friends and family or any person so that they will be in your team. Internet work offers many benefits like I am usually home with my friends and family and can relish a lot of free time and go out for holidays. Here's the fastest way to start >>> THAPMARK.TUMBLR.COM

Posted by Rebecca R. Tate on 2018-11-20 05:01:26

I generally earn nearly $12500-$13500 each and every month through the net. After doing work so passionately, I ended up losing my job in my company where I have given many years. I really needed a reliable source of income. I am not into "get rich overnight" deals you see all across the internet. Those are all kind of ponzi referral marketing strategies in which you need to first make interested customers and then sell a product to friends and family members or any person so that they will probably be in your team. Internet job has many benefits such as I am usually home with my friends and family and can enjoy loads of leisure time and go out for family vacations. Here's the simplest way to start >>> FILEGLIB.TUMBLR.COM

Posted by Beverly M. Hart on 2018-11-19 00:29:55

I am gaining $14000 per 30 days by freelancing from convenience of my home and you can also do the same. In company work you dont get that freedom that you really deserve, so office job seriously sucks. On the other hand in Online earning, you have got the freedom to enjoy your time with all your family members any time you want and go on vacation together with them any month you desire. Here's the proper way to start LOOKJORTS.TUMBLR.COM

Posted by Alline D. Ferrer on 2018-10-28 04:31:04

that's not a true statement. TR I live in NY where proof of person ID's are needed for driving, working, taxes, voting on school issues, town issues, library issues, also we need ID to take a return back to Walmarts, to have a bank account, to vote in primaries, to vote on local town issues and for board members, to go to the hospital, to have blood drawn, to get prescriptions, to have electricity and utilities turned on , shall I go on??? So why on earth , with so much democrat voter FRAUD on the books, would you think that having ID to vote such critical elections is unfair?

Posted by Hawkmoon Soaps on 2018-10-25 16:48:25

We all have aspirations to achieve even so we somewhere go missing in this today’s fast paced life. Let’s help to make your goals arise true by helping you earn atleast $37000 per thirty days. On-line occupation that operates to suit your needs and earns for you. It gives you versatility to work at anyplace and drive your future in your way. It gives independence to spend more time your family and friends and choice to achieve all your dreams. It surely is challenging to trust it because its quite high having to pay still its really true. It is not a scam or fraud but a way to shift everything the way you dreamed of. Online and make income. Give it a try and make that try worth >>>> BINTMOON.TUMBLR.COM

Posted by Angela J. Savoy on 2018-10-25 02:56:20

I generally gain roughly $24,000-$25,000 each month via internet. I lost my job after working for the same organization for years, I needed reliable income. I was not interested in the "get rich overnight" packages you can find all over the net. Those are usually mlm programs or stuff in which you need to sell to your friends and family. The most important part of working on line is that I am always home with the little kids, I save lots of money. This is what I do> TORPICKY.TUMBLR.COM

Posted by Ina F. Gearhart on 2018-10-13 10:55:17

This is one example of why voter ID requirements only keep people from voting.Conservatives use that to discriminate.

Posted by TR on 2018-10-11 17:17:42

About this Blog

This blog’s mission is to make the issues that rural America is grappling with part of national discourse. more